Friday, September 28, 2012

World Chess Champ Boris Spassky in Hospital; Was He Kidnapped?

We wish speedy recovery to world chess great Boris Spassky who is currently hospitalised for treatment against hypertension in hospital Railways (RZD) in Moscow. (Photo: Photo: RIA Novosti). On September 26, Le Figaro reported that Spassky's son has complained in a French court against unknown people "for kidnapping" his father. In mid-August, the Russian media talked about Spassky's hospitalisation. In one of the interviews, Spassky said he had been abused by his family members.

According to reports, Spassky was hospitalised in a Moscow medical institution after suffering a stroke in 2010. He was first treated at a Moscow hospital, but his family then had him transferred to a hospital in France.

In an interview with a Russian publication, which Spassky Jr. claims was made up, his father is quoted as saying he had been "isolated" in France since 2010 and could not go to police, while his relatives gave him large quantities of sedatives which led to skin diseases. Spassky also said he had been deprived of both his Russian and his French documents, but with the help of his friends and the Russian embassy, he had managed to fly home this August.

However, Spassky's son gives a different account of the events in the Figaro interview. He said that a woman named Valentina Kuznetsova came to visit his father at the French hospital. She had an aggressive manner and stopped the family members from talking with Spassky in private. She was also extremely offensive towards them. Some time after Spassky came home from the hospital, he disappeared without a trace.

Three weeks after his father's disappearance, Spassky Jr. learnt that he was in a Moscow hospital and was being attended by Kuznetsova.

After he married Marina Shcherbachyova in 1976, he relocated to France, while still maintaining the right to play for the USSR.